Car "Dude" Evan
Issue 174 - 25 April 2007
Toyota overtakes GM in 2007
This Tuesday, it was announced that Toyota passed GM in the first quarter of 2007 as the world's largest auto manufacture as measured in units sold. Toyota sold 2.35 million units while GM sold 2.26 million units.
Toyota's sales include Lexus and Scion divisions as well as subsidiaries Daihatsu Motor Co. and Hino Motors Ltd. GM includes Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Pontiac, Cadillac, Opel, Vauxhall, Holden and Saab.
Toyota is predicting a 6% sales increase in 2007. GM isn't predicting much other than that its US market share will probably decline slightly. Last year, Red Ink Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO, said that GM wasn't going to give up its 76 year old sales leader crown without a fight. The fight may already be over.
Wall Street and the world financial markets love Toyota with a market capitalization of over $225 billion. GM, technically bankrupt, still has a market cap of around $17.41 billion. GM's stock took a hit on Tuesday when the news of Toyota's good fortune was announced.
If you drive the streets of LA, you will know that there was never any question that Toyota would overtake GM. It's hard to find privately-owned GM passenger cars and the number of GM big SUVs and pickup trucks is shrinking every year. GM desperately soldiers on in the Southern California market. Just this week, if you are a resident of So Cal, GM rolled out a $199/month lease offer on the Impala and it bragged about how the Impala beats both the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry in several objective metrics like size, horse power, etc. Don't expect Toyota or Honda to lose sleep over GM's challenge.
Toyota played down the news, as expected. However, Toyota rightly points out that its customers don't care about its ranking and that Toyota will focus on continually improving its products and to satisfy customers. I can't disagree with that philosophy.
Initial Interest in Smart ForTwo higher than expected
Four weeks ago, Smart USA began its $99 Reservation Program. According to Smart USA President Dave Schembri, the initial response "far exceeded [its] most optimistic expectations".
From the "I told you so" file, as expected, California was the number one state for orders. California has the largest population (exceeding 36 million residents) and probably has the most urban dwellers focused on being as green as possible. Florida and Texas trailed California with the most orders and the Tri-State Area (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) take up 4th Place.
I wonder where Detroit was on that list.
Most popular model: Smart Passion Coupe. [The Passion model is the upscale coupe loaded with more options that the base Pure model.]
Top three body panel colors: Metallic red, metallic blue and deep black.
In the interest of full disclosure, four weeks ago I ordered a 2008 smart ForTwo Passion Coupe in metallic red with red interior and metallic silver Tridion safety cell. It seems that the majority of people who took advantage of Reservation Program agreed with my choices!
Within a couple weeks, Smart USA will announce the stops on its 50 city tour of the US. I'll keep you posted on the stops in the So Cal area as well as links to the tour.
The people who made reservations, including me, did so sight unseen. Sure, I've seen the pictures and read the foreign reviews. But I haven't driven it nor seen the quality of the materials. I think that people are desperately searching for fuel efficient, fun and unique transportation. There are precious few choices in the marketplace today.
Olympic and Pico to become one way streets
So LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is tired of the Westside traffic jams; particularly on the east-west streets like Sunset, Wilshire, Santa Monica Blvd, Olympic and Pico. Finally. It was only a few months ago that Zev decided the traffic problem was bad enough for him to get his fat ass into action to do something about his commute.
Did anyone who lives or works in LA Metro not know that crossing under the 405 Freeway was nearly impossible during morning and evening commute times? The 405 is already a parking lot at those times so why is Zev surprised that the surface street arteries anywhere near the 405 were jammed to the point of eternal frustration.
The quick fix, making Olympic and Pico one-way streets during workday commute hours, is just going to confuse LA drivers who aren't accustomed to these kinds of street designations. If you want proof, go to Downtown LA where the streets are one-way full-time and watch the confused drivers try to figure out how to get to their destinations. If you work Downtown, you are used to the traffic patterns. But to the occasional visitor, Downtown LA is a confusing maze of one-way streets and no left turns.
A recent study cited by the LA Times indicates that if we make these streets one-way during peak traffic hours, it's possible to gain 20% better traffic flow. This is significant. But it only works if you eliminate left turn along the way. If you allow left turns, the efficiency gain is only 5.7%.
All this sounds well and good. And LA needs new ideas when it comes to traffic planning and congestion relief. But when oh when are we going to get real mass transit? The proposed extension of the Red Line subway from Wilshire and Western along Wilshire Blvd to the beach in Santa Monica will cost at least $3 billion and be 10 years or more in the making. If the studies and our elected officials are projecting costs of $3 billion today, if (and when) it ever does get built, it will have cost taxpayers at least $6 billion. We can do much more above-ground monorail or light rail systems for that kind of money.
The LA Times cited another very ugly traffic statistic about LA. The Westside of LA is home to one third of the 75 most congested intersections in the entire United States! LA has been king of freeway congestion for decades; however it's only in the last several years that the surface streets have become gridlocked from early morning all the way through the end of evening commutes. It's harsh to hear that traffic engineers and municipalities around the US have made our daily nightmare official. Our surface street traffic really sucks!
I still think we can use above-ground light rail like the Monorail in Disneyland. Hum, I think Walt Disney himself figured that out some 50+ years ago. The idea is still a good, viable idea; but it never gets any political traction. And wouldn't it be nice to see a monorail system that goes down the middle of our congested freeways? It is just common sense. I know the vast majority of Los Angelinos agree with me but there continues to be no political capital or will to make anything happen.
My prognosis: Gridlock in LA will only get worse until we have daily surface street road rage violence. Maybe when people start shooting each other over a left turn from a street with no left turn lane will our lazy politicians band together to do something radical like mass transit that goes to and from places where people live, work and play.
MINI sound packages finally available
The reason I didn't order an 07 MINI Cooper S this time around was the fact that for some unknown reason, the $1,400 Sound Package -- that includes the Hi-Fi 10-speaker package, Sirius Satellite radio with a lifetime subscription and HD radio -- wasn't available. According to a customer adviser at AskMINIUSA.com, the Sound Package can be ordered now from your MINI dealer for cars built starting in June.
BMW dealers and getting the car you want
As a coda to my experience at Nick Alexander BMW and Beverly Hills BMW, I ended up leasing a 2007 335i Coupe from Nick. [See Issue 169, 15 March 2007] I didn't have much of a choice. According to the vehicle locator online software program we used at Nick Alexander, the only 335i Coupe on the west coast of the US that had all the options I wanted (except Active Steering) was sitting not more than 20 feet away from me on Nick's lot. Convenient, huh?
It would have been at least 8 weeks to get a custom build car from Germany and my A6 lease was expiring in two weeks.
But I learned more about dealer trading than ever before with this experience. It's not just Beverly Hills and Santa Monica BMW that are shunned by other dealers. Even Nick gets shunned at times. The reasons always go back to petty fights between management personalities at each dealer.
And as I reported before, not all available cars are listed either on the dealer locator screens or on the individual dealer websites. If you really want a specific model in the kit and color you want, you literally have to call each dealer and talk to a sales associate. Be prepared to buy the car from that dealership and that sales associated because they aren't going to trade the car out of their inventory. For example, the car I bought (leased) didn't show up on Nick's locator screen because they had hidden it by showing it as sold when it wasn't sold.
If I had the time and energy, I would have called every BMW dealer from the Mexican border to Seattle. I did call just about every Northern California dealer and I came close to finding what I wanted; however, it was always lacking one option package or another.
I settled for a "lesser" car than I had planned. My 335i is missing a few things: A multi-CD changer, HD radio, BMW's specific iPod integration kit that allows the iPod screen to appear on the navigation screen, and Active Steering. It's also not my first choice of colors. I wanted Space Gray with red leather interior and aluminum trim. I "settled" for non-metallic black, black leather and burled walnut wood trim.
Nick Alexander BMW's advertising slogan has long been "Nick can't say No" when it comes to a deal on a new BMW. Guess what? Nick said "no" to me when I asked for a discount -- any discount -- no matter how small or insignificant. So be prepared to hear "no" if you want something scarce or specific.
My advice to any auto enthusiast is to start at least three months in advance looking for your car. It's likely that if you are like me or Alan, you will have to order the exact car you want and that takes at least 8 weeks assuming you can even place the order. Each dealer has a certain allotment and you can snatch one of them before it's actually built to customize to your specs. But with any "hot" model, there aren't that many pre-manufacture slots out there, even for LA high volume dealers.
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